Physics

Units
Electrical units: Ampere, Coulomb, Joule, Ohm, Second, volt and watt.

Mains electricity
Insulation: A material that doesn’t conduct electricity around a live conductor.

Double insulation: Appliances have casings made from plastic rather than metal. Electrical parts can’t be touched.

Appliances will only have two-wire cables as they don’t need the earth wire.

Earthing: Frayed wires in a device can come into contact with the casing = electric shock. Preventing electrocution, a third
‘Earth’ wire is placed to conduct excess current safety to ground.

Earth wire not required if casing is plastic or double insulated.

Fuses: Sit in a circuit ( a plug) and melt above a certain threshold of current.

Once melted need to be replaced - easily done as cheap.

Help prevent too much current flowing through a device and causing a fire (potentially).

Circuit breaker: Contains a coil of wire acting as a electromagnetic. Current increases so does the magnetic field.

Once magnetic field becomes strong - pre-determined limit based on max current the circuit can safety handle.

It attracts an iron pin on a rocker = breaking circuit. Circuit breaker can be reset once fault identified and remedied.

Circuit breaker Fuse

Earthing wire

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 Resistor at a constant temperature: Fixed resistor, the voltage is directly proportional to the current.

Doubling the amount of energy = current twice as fast through resistor.

Relationship called Ohms law and is true because the resistance of the resistor is fixed (temperature doesn’t change).

Power = voltage x current: Electric energy transferred each second. P= I x V

Power (P) measured in Watts (W) , energy transferred (J) and time (S), Voltage (V) measured in Volts (V), Current (I)
measured in Amperes (A).

(Sometimes we don’t know the current or voltage so P=IV cannot calculate power.We use ohms law instead).

Fuses: Every appliance that uses mains electricity has a moulded plug and section to replace the fuse.

Fuse-safety device stops the connecting wire and cable overheating.

2 sizes for devices:

• Power rating of up to (720 W), use 3 A fuse.

• Power rating over (720 W), use 13 A fuse.

• (5 A ) or (8 A) should be replaced.

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 Energy transferred = current x voltage x time: E= I x V x T

energy transferred (E) in joules (J), Current (I) in amperes (A), potential differences (V) in volts (V), time (t) in seconds (S).

Given amount of electrical change that moves , the amount of energy transferred increases as the potential difference increases.

AC and DC:

AC
If the current constantly changes direction called alternating current.Mains electricity is an AC supply.

Uk mains supply is 230V, frequency of 50 Hz meaning it changes direction and back again 50 times a second.

The diagram shows an oscilloscope screen displaying the signal from an AC supply.

DC
The current flows in only one direction. batteries and solar cells supply DC electricity.

A typical batter may supply (1.5 V)

The screen diagram shows an oscilloscope displaying the signal from a DC supply.

Energy and voltage in circuits

Parallel circuit is a circuit that has more than one possible path around it.

Voltage in parallel
Voltage across each of the branches is the same across the entire circuit = add more bulbs without reducing the brightness of the others.

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Current in parallel
Current = flow of electrons, each electron can only flow down one path so the current is split between the paths.

Useful as each paths can be controlled independently of one another.

A series circuit only has one path.As there is only one route, any of the components break, all other components cease to function.

Current at all points equal.

Adding more components to a series circuit = energy has to be shared more = each component getting less.(E.G - add more bulbs to a circuit the
brightness of each bulb would decrease).

Current is the flow of negatively charged electrons around the circuit.

Use a LED or bulb as a quickly way of checking if circuit is working.

LEDs and lamps

LED and lamps produce light when a current flows though then in a forward direction .

Used for indicator lights in electrical equipment e.g computers and television. LED use smaller current than other lightings use = increasing.